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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835360">Clan and Kin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKitsune13/pseuds/Halcyon%20Days%20no%20More'>Halcyon Days no More (KageKitsune13)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gargoyles (Cartoon), The Walking Dead (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Crossovers &amp; Fandom Fusions, Don't Copy to Another Site Without Permission, Drabble, Gargoyle Daryl Dixon, Gen, Good Sibling Merle Dixon, Human Merle Dixon, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Protective Merle Dixon, Season/Series 01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:39:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835360</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKitsune13/pseuds/Halcyon%20Days%20no%20More</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The dead are walking and it's the end of the world as they know it. Two brothers, separated by species, but kin nevertheless, contemplate their next move. Can they risk trusting outsiders or would it be better to make their own way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daryl Dixon &amp; Merle Dixon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Clan and Kin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Merle Dixon sighed as he drummed his fingers impatiently on steering wheel. Vent windows of the pick-up open – the only concession to the oppressive Georgia heat that not even night had bled away.</p><p> </p><p>Normally on a night like this he’d have the windows cranked all the way down. But with the dead walking the last thing he needed was to get caught with his pants down so to speak.</p><p> </p><p>Damn if he didn’t hate the boredom of the hurry up and wait that had led to him sitting on the side of the road while his brother scouted out the quarry just up the hill. Couldn’t even pop a tape into the player without risk of attracting a pack of geeks.</p><p> </p><p>He was just about to blow another gusty sigh when the entire pick-up gave a bone rattling lurch as something large and heavy dropped onto the cab roof.</p><p> </p><p>“Son o’ a bitch,” he swore, bringing up a broad hand to slap against the roof of the cab. “What th’ hell you thinkin’, rocks fer brains! Yer gonna wreck the suspension ya over grown lawn ornament!”</p><p> </p><p>The truck shook again as whatever was on top of the cab scrambled down into the bed before then climbing down to the ground and around into the cab itself through the passenger side door.</p><p> </p><p>Now most folks when confronted with a humanoid being that could generously be said to look like a demon from hell would have been shitting themselves – Merle was not most people.</p><p> </p><p>He reached across the pick-up cab and cuffed gargoyle across the back of the head; careful not catch his hand in the curling ram-like horns that sprouted from the being’s forehead and arched up and over the top of his brother’s head.</p><p> </p><p>“Trucks fine. It’s not the firs’ time I’ve used it as a landin’ pad.” The, ‘and it won’t be the last,’ was implied.</p><p> </p><p>“So, jus’ how big a group we talkin’ ’bout up at the quarry?” Merle demanded, letting the matter of his truck’s suspension drop in lieu of a more important matter.</p><p> </p><p>“Couple dozen at least,” Daryl Dixon muttered as he worried the talon of his right thumb between his sharp teeth, boney knees drawn up to his chest as he mantled his wings around broad shoulders and coiled his tail over top his clawed bare feet. “Biggest vehicle’s a Winnebago with a little tent city ‘round it. Half a dozen family groups an' some lone survivors.”</p><p> </p><p>“Look like they got any shit worth taken’?”</p><p> </p><p>“Plenty of camping shit scattered around, but nothin’ we don’ already got,” Daryl listed. “The feller that looked to be their leader had a shotgun – police issue – but didn’t look like anyone else was carryin’.”</p><p> </p><p>“So other than sitting on a prime bit of real-estate they ain’t got shit.” Merle surmised.</p><p> </p><p>“Mhmm,” Daryl hummed around the talon. Apparently having exhausted his quota of words for the night.</p><p> </p><p>Merle drummed his fingers on the steering wheel again, thinking hard. On the one hand if there was ever a pair better situated for surviving the end of the word as they knew it was them. Daryl’s very biology meant he was perfect for night watch and even during the day when he entered his stone sleep, he was impervious to the dead.</p><p> </p><p>On the other hand, there was safety in numbers for Merle himself during the day, even if it just amounted to the old adage of ‘I don’t have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you,’ which would probably hold true to geeks as well.</p><p> </p><p>The real concern was how this bunch of already scared humans would react to the presence of a gargoyle. Sure, the GMPA – the Gargoyle Minority Protection Act – has been passed three years ago prohibiting the hunting and destruction of the rare beings, but all it took was one Quarryman sympathizer with a sledgehammer for his baby brother to end up as so much gravel.</p><p> </p><p>“A’right, here’s the plan,” he said, before laying it all out. “Tonight, we’ll camp down here, then in the morning you’ll make like a boulder in the truck bed under that tarp we got. I’ll then go an’ see if I can’t ingratiate myself with th’ camp and get a feel of ’em. Make sure we ain’t ‘bout to roll up on a passel of Quarrymen.”</p><p> </p><p>Merle could feel more than hear the low subsonic rumble that bubbled up in his brother’s chest. Eye’s flashing silvery white with an old hate that lived deep in the both of them.</p><p> </p><p>Daryl hadn’t even been hatched when a group of Canmore Hunters had come through. Shattering the Blue Ridge Clan in their venerable stone sleep and smashing all of Daryl’s potential rookery brothers and sisters.</p><p> </p><p>It had been pure dumb luck and the heart of a brave woman that had saved his brother.</p><p> </p><p>Merle’s mama, Nora Dixon, and her people had been allies of the clan for generations. She’d been heading up the mountain for a daylight check on the clan’s resting place when she’d heard the butchers at work.</p><p> </p><p>Knowing a lone woman couldn’t hope to save the adults of the small clan, she’d snuck into the rookery. The problem was that gargoyle eggs were large and heavy as stone cannonballs.</p><p> </p><p>She’d only been able to spirit a pair away before the rookery had been found and the remaining trio of eggs smashed.</p><p> </p><p>Nora's family, the McAlisters, had cared for the two eggs, but there was only so much that even allies of a gargoyle clan knew of the delicate tending required for a gargoyle egg to remain viable and in the end only one had hatched.</p><p> </p><p>Merle had only been a snot-nosed kid of ten when his brother had worked his way free of the shell. Pale gray where a normal baby would have been ruddy red. Tiny horn nubs had already been sprouting from his brow ridge.</p><p> </p><p>Over the years his brother had grown into the curling ram-like horns that marked him as the son of the clan's late leader, Shae, with the dappled rosettes of Shae’s mate, Tallulah, across his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>Merle was brought back to the present as his brother lowered his large taloned feet to the floorboard.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m gonna go hunt,” he declared, hand clasping the door handle. “See if I can’t catch sumthin’ good,” he added. “Sumthin’ to impress them city slickers. Lord knows they probably ain’t had fresh meat since this all started.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, sounds good,” Merle agreed. “Be back before sunup, ya hear.”</p><p> </p><p>A nod and his brother was out the door. Pausing only to collect his crossbow from the truck bed before he was off. Loping toward the tree line at a ground eating pace.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic is mostly just me testing the waters to see if there's any interest for this sort of fic in the TWD fandom. If there is I may turn it into a longer series.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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